Revolt of Beckman

The Revolt of Beckman , appeared in 1684, in the State of Maranhão of the time, is regarded as a movement nativist (form of nationalism, on behalf of residents of the Colony of Brazil) of the Colony by the historiographers of the History of Brazil.

Genesis

Since 1650, the State de Maranhão faced a serious economic crisis, owing to the fact that the regional sugar company could not pay the too high prices of the African slaves.

To solve the problem of the labor, the owners of local sugar refineries organized groups of mercenaries to go to capture the Indigène S of the installations Jesuits and to have thus cheap slaves. These evangelized natives were employed by the Jesuits for the harvest of the “products of the Sertão” (cloves, grooves, medicinal plants, oil S, resins, Cacao, skins, Poisson S and salted Viande S, etc), type of saving in extraction. Vis-a-vis the undergone aggressions, the Society of Jesus resorted to the Portuguese Crown which intervened and prohibits the slavery of the Indien S (which were not any profit for the metropolis).

The government of the Crown, to cure the lack of arm, created the General Company of State trading de Maranhão in 1682, which, inter alia things, undertook to introduce five hundred African slaves per annum into the area, during twenty years. Not succeeding in achieving its promise, the economic crisis worsened and the dissatisfaction with the inhabitants increased.

The movement

A group of owners of refineries of Maranhão carried out by Manoel Beckman, a Jewish , organized a movement, with the double objective to finish some with the intrigues of the General Company of State trading de Maranhão and with the influence of the Jesuits. They also pled to be authorized to subject the Indians to slavery. In the night of the February 24th 1684, the Governor of the Harbor office being absent from São Luís, the rebellion was started. Its substitute was imprisoned, the destroyed stores of the Company, the occupied school of the Jesuits and the expelled Fathers.

A provisional government was made up and Tomás Beckman, brother of Beckman Handbook, was charged to go to Lisbon to make a statement on the situation to the Crown. This one, with the fact of the events, not accepting the behavior of the rebels, stopped and condemned Tomás Beckman. It sent to Maranhão a new governor, Gomes Freire de Andrade which applied on its arrival of hard sorrows to revolted: Manoel Beckman and two other chiefs of the movement were hung.

Consequently, the Portuguese Crown modified its policy in the area: the Jesuits turned over to Maranhão, the General Company of State trading de Maranhão was dissolved in 1685, and the slavery of the Natives was authorized.

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